Men's Reports of Contraceptive Use: The Effect of Question Variation and the Extent of Uncertainty

Joyce C. Abma, National Center for Health Statistics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Laura E. Porter, Johns Hopkins University
Freya L. Sonenstein, Urban Institute

Accurately measuring sexual risk behavior among men and women is important for monitoring exposure to unplanned pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections. Men's reports of contraceptive use at a given occurrence of sexual intercourse may differ from women's and can be affected by survey design as well as real uncertainty. The 2001 pretest of the first male National Survey of Family Growth included methodological experiments on (1) the effect of question format on method use at last sex and (2) uncertainty surrounding method use at first sex. Preliminary results show that (1) asking separate questions about male and female method use elicits higher reports of method use than asking a single question and (2) about half of men who report no female method use at first sex are uncertain about that report. Analyses will explore these findings and draw comparisons to female reports of method use.